EP24: The Three Monkeys

Commentaries by Vee Jay Attri during the Book Study – Secrets of Karma

We shall continue with our study from the Secrets of Karma. We were talking about Mahatma Gandhi’s Three Monkeys. We talked about “See no evil and Talk no evil.” Under the “See no Evil,” we had a reminder to see only good things in others.

We mentioned that no one is perfect and normally what you see in others reflects what you are truly.

See no evil reminds you to see only the good things in others. No one is perfect, including spiritual teachers. Moreover, what you see in others reflects who and what you truly are.

So, there is a very beautiful story here which you already know but just as a good reminder let’s read it again:

Once there was a Master named Fo Yin who had a friend named Su Dong Po, who was a poet. One day, the poet sat in front of the Master and asked him, “Who do I look like?”

The Master said, “You look like the Buddha”. The poet said, “But you look like a pile of garbage!” The Master smiled and said, “The one who is full of Buddha nature sees the Buddha in others. But the one who is full of garbage can only see others as a pile of garbage.“

“See no evil” also suggests you avoid watching anything unwholesome. Eyes being the windows to your inner world, what you see affects your inner state of being. The story of Jacob and his lands in the Holy Bible gives an amazing insight to this:

Jacob’s uncle Laban agreed to give Jacob all lambs born striped, spotted and speckled. But later Laban cleverly removed all striped, spotted and speckled animals from Jacob’s flocks. So, Jacob took fresh rods of poplar and almond, peeled white streaks in them and made the rods look striped and speckled.

He then placed them near the water troughs where the flocks came to drink. The flocks that bred in front of the striped and speckled rods also produced striped, speckled and spotted lambs, thus making Jacob rich.

An extraordinarily profound story that has got a very deeper level of insight. First and foremost thing is, eyes being the windows for the inner world; what we repeatedly see through our eyes is what gets imprinted or impregnated in the inner world.

So, if you keep looking at things that are not useful to you nor wholesome, over a period of time, the mind naturally will be corrupted because whatever that you keep seeing often is exactly what gets imprinted or impregnated in the mind.

When you often watch serials and movies full of tragedies and violence, you will get contaminated with similar emotions or aggressions.

You have to remember that contamination happens not only with your thoughts but also because like attract like, then over time, whatever is the quality of your thoughts and your emotions is exactly what you will be attracting.

So. the effect is very much compounding. Not only you start experiencing the effect of your own creation but by virtue of creating certain energies that have a tendency to attract like energies, the problems keep on getting aggravated.

That is why, people who have the habit of seeing things that are not very wholesome or people who have the habit of seeing the flaws in others, eventually get highly contaminated.

Furthermore, indulgence in pornography makes one come under the influence of harmful psychic energies that can adversely affect your health, wealth and happiness.

You have to remember in the inner world there are many beings, being of varying categories, varying grades and each of these beings need a type of food with the energy with which they are made up of. For example, in the psychotherapy class we have learnt that if somebody is habituated to get angry frequently, that person, by virtue of producing anger thought forms, attracts beings that need the food of anger.

Anger being the energy, it naturally attracts beings that are in need of such energy, the anger elementals as we called it. So, the inner world is as real as the physical world where we see people full of good as well as bad. That is exactly what you need to remember.

So, it is absolutely true that like attracts like and that there is an absolute possibility of you attracting elementals or entities that adversely affect your state of mind, your emotions and over a period of time, it starts having an effect on your etheric bodies, including chakras and many forms of physical and psychological ailments automatically comes to you.

That is the reason why you need to be choosy about what you are watching. Furthermore, indulgence in pornography makes one come under the influence of harmful psychic energies that can adversely affect your health, wealth and happiness.

Now, we talked about “Talk no evil”, “See no evil”, “Hear no evil” but the origin of all this begins with your thought.

So, ideally, you could add one more, “Think no evil” because when you do not learn how to condition your thoughts and the thoughts are wild, over a period of time, you lose majority of your energy in wasteful thoughts.

In the morning, we were talking about this very important message. Three important aspects we talked about; responsibility, focus and energy. We all have an extraordinary responsibility in not only taking care of ourselves but also contributing to the wellbeing of the humanity at large.

Now to be able to deliver your responsibility, you need to practice having the right focus. If your thoughts are not under your control and you focus on things that are not of importance, things that are not wholesome in the first place, over a period of time, majority of your mental resources are lost in this.

And consequently when there is an opportunity to do something good, something grand, because there is not sufficient mental resources available, you do not become successful in doing or accomplishing what you need to. That is the reason why right focus is so important.

All the time putting your focus in what you are expected to focus, in wholesome things and activities will automatically help to enhance your mental resources and then, suddenly when an opportunity comes, you will have all the energy of the universe to support you, to back you up, to accomplish and make you successful.

So, be very careful about putting your focus in the right place. Alright, let us continue.

Attitude of Gratitude

If you see what is there, it is heaven. If you see what is not there, it is hell.
^{Swami Sahajananda}

By the way, I was in the ashram of Swami Sahajananda. It is somewhere down south. So, this quotation that we have shared here is actually displayed in his garden so beautifully. Many beautiful and wondrous insightful quotations and one was this quotation.

If you see what is there, it is heaven. If you see what is not there, it is hell. So, this is actually a very beautiful way of explaining the gratitude factor in our life, that when you learn to see whatever that is good in your life, you experience a heaven like condition.

But if you have the habit of looking at the faults or things that you do not have, in spite of having everything, including good people in your life, you experience a hell like condition. This happens automatically and that is exactly the reminder of this beautiful quotation by Swami Sahajananda.

A deep feeling of gratitude for all that life has offered in itself is positive karma and brings more peace, joy and abundance while ingratitude makes one attract misery and scarcity.

A deep feeling of gratitude for all that life has offered in itself is positive karma. That means, when the mind is engaged in looking at good things in life, good things in people, because you are now exuding the positive vibe, by virtue of radiating that positive vibe, you are naturally radiating goodness.

And consequently, you accrue good karma or positive karma and this will bring more peace, joy and abundance. The problem with ingratitude is; first of all, you are unhappy, you are not peaceful, you are dissatisfied, you are desperate, you are frustrated.

All these negative psychic emotions compel you to radiate negative vibes around you and even though people would like to be happy but because of your very strong influence, you contaminate people, bringing down the energy for everybody.

That is the negative karma. That is the reason why gratitude opens the door for abundance, ingratitude opens the door for misery and pain. Please remember this!

People are often unhappy and frustrated because they do not realize the value of what they already have. They take everything for granted and even speak ill of whose who supported them in difficult times!

This is something that we keep seeing even today, very amazingly. It’s very incredible to watch people having so much of ingratitude, they completely forget what they have received and forget about doing something good to you in return. They actually give you so much of pain.

Ingratitude will eventually bring great misery and pain. That is a very severe negative karma. Even you do not follow any virtue in your life, even if you do not do anything meaningful, at least have one important trait; a heart full of gratitude.

Morning as you wake up, wake up with a heart full of gratitude. In the evening, when you retire to bed, again, say a gratitude prayer and end your day nicely with a beautiful smile. Then, you will find that gradually, in a very short period of time, the transformation process will happen without saying a word. People around you will transform!

Gratitude, Gratitude and Gratitude!

Further reading, Secrets of Karma, Page 48